Essays

The name I’m called, Fay, comes from “Feygela,” little bird. My real name, the name my mother bestowed on me, is FeygaPinya. That double name belonged to newlyweds in Kovel near Kiev, in Tsarist Russia. They were cousins of my mother, one from each side of her family. They were modern Jewish socialists, idealists like Tolstoy, who supported the uprising of 1905 with fiery speeches,..

Fiction

Second Prize, 2015 Literal Latte Fiction Award.
I learned of the mortal health risks in reading Shakespeare from my star pupil, Henry Sprague III. You could say Henry made an impact, though the irony might offend. It doesn’t take much to offend these days, and nothing does it like the truth…

I got the note in Esmé’s backpack this afternoon: her long black cape has become “a distraction to the class” and she is no longer welcome to wear it to school. There was no mention of the wand. It is difficult to be a wizard among “Muggles”…

First Prize, 2015 Literal Latte Fiction Award.
It was a silly accident, really. They were idling at a four-way stop. Mark was preoccupied, his brain grappling for the fastest route to Auntie Donna’s house. They were already late. It had been three years since their last visit, and all the once-familiar streets were now littered with subdivisions full of crescents and cul-de-sacs….

Winner, 2015 Literal Latte Short Short Contest.
Ms. Kramer was explaining the difference between infinitives and imperatives to Lily Spencer for — not kidding — the fifth time when Jarod Troutman slapped a pair of cuffs on her. Half a pair, technically. The other ring was attached to his own wrist…

Poetry

First Prize, 2015 Literal Latte Poetry Award.
In this self-portrait, Cobain is the personification of the speaker’s rage. His dressing in drag represents the gender fluidity the speaker feels 90% of the time, although this may be the result of exposure to certain polyurethane products,..

First Prize, 2015 Literal Latte Poetry Award. If I were Kurt’s childhood wound, what would I look like? The speaker stares off into the middle distance and tries to imagine Aberdeen, mid-seventies, a flaxen-haired kid who would become the next rock legend, and not the gaping hole of his left eye socket…

Winner, 2015 Literal Latte Food Verse Contest.
The same cloth has lain for years over the table in the kitchen
where he sits in a white T-shirt, his chin greasy from gnawing
the chicken crooked in the hollow between finger and thumb, bones
piled on a tin pie plate…